


Training Wheels

by GwendolynGrace



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Birthday, Gen, John's parenting, Light Angst, Pre-Series, Road Trips, Weechesters, Young Dean Winchester, Young Winchesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-25
Updated: 2007-06-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 22:08:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10728240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GwendolynGrace/pseuds/GwendolynGrace
Summary: Dean’s first driving lesson





	Training Wheels

**Author's Note:**

> This work was written in 2007, before subsequent canon may have joss'd it.

**January 24, 1986**

John pulled onto a suitable stretch of desert road: stick-straight, no fences, wide shoulder, and visibility for miles. Not another vehicle within that line of sight, behind or before, either. Perfect.

“Okay, Dean, come up here, kiddo,” he called, searching out Dean’s eyes in the mirror. Dean complied eagerly, with only a mildly smug look at Sam. John tilted the steering wheel as high as it would go and unfastened his seatbelt while Dean clambered over the bench.

“Sit on my lap, and hold the wheel in a loose grip just above the Vee of the spokes,” John instructed. Dean approached the wheel with reverence bordering on awe. John pulled his son’s legs around so that they paralleled his own. “Can you feel when my foot flexes and points?” he asked, revving the engine a couple times with his left foot on the brake. Dean’s shoes bounced lightly against him, just under his knees.

Dean nodded solemnly.

“Good. Now, I’m gonna hold your hands for a bit, so you get the feel of it.” They drove up the stretch of road with John’s hands overlaying his boy’s. After about half a mile, John slowed. “Okay, buddy, you ready to try it on your own?”

“Y-yes, Daddy,” Dean said, clutching the wheel.

“Okay. Relax your hands, dude. Now, we’re gonna work as a team, okay, Dean? I’ll control the pedals and you just steer. You’ve got no one around, and nothing to get in the way. Just try to keep the car going straight, like we were just doing. Ready?”

“O…okay.”

“Okay, here we go.” John eased his foot off the brake, letting the Impala roll forward without giving it any gas. Dean clutched the wheel again when he felt the car pull away. “Just relax,” John said calmly in Dean’s ear. “Don’t move the wheel back and forth so much. Hold it steady.” Without power steering, Dean couldn’t really turn the car, but the wheel had a loose action and John didn’t want to tax the alignment.

Dean leaned against his father’s chest and John smelled the clean, talcum scent of the baby shampoo he still used on both boys. He could also feel Dean trembling. “Breathe, son,” John said, braking a bit.

Dean took a deep breath. “Sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay,” John said, smiling. “It’s okay, just…relax. Ready to try again?”

Dean nodded again. John let out the brake and eased down the gas pedal. Dean held the wheel still this time, but he had cocked it to the left while they were stopped, and the car veered toward the yellow line.

“Dude, come right a little,” John coached, pulling up on the gas. He resisted the urge to put his hands back over the top of Dean’s; it would only damage Dean’s regained confidence. The thought brought with it an image of how he’d always imagined they’d spend Dean’s seventh birthday. Other dads were teaching their seven-year-old sons to ride bikes, John thought bitterly. Other fathers were walking along hedge-lined sidewalks, steadying their boys on shiny red Schwinns after having detached the training wheels the night before. Dean’s training wheels came with two tons of steel, leather, and chrome.

“You’re overcorrecting; bring ’er back to center, kiddo,” John said as they approached the shoulder. He fed the Impala just a touch of gas so they didn’t stop altogether. Dean adjusted better this time, using his weight to pull past the resistance. “Good job. See the middle line of the hood? That should line up with the white line on your right corner. And your left fender should be inside the yellow line. Stay centered, now.” They drifted along at barely ten miles per hour for a few more hundred yards while Dean got the hang of it.

“Look, Dad! I’m doing it!” Dean said proudly.

“Dean’s driving!” Sam called from the back.

“That’s right, Sammy,” John said. “Good job, Dean. Ready for a little more speed?”

Dean drew another deep breath and the wheel wobbled, then steadied. “Okay, Daddy.”

“We’ll speed up just a little at a time, kiddo,” John said, unable to resist a laugh. He dropped a quick, proud kiss onto the crown of Dean’s head, breathing in that powdery, baby-smell. When he looked up, Dean had let the wheel crank toward left again.

“Right, Dean, right!” John said. Dean jumped and jerked the wheel to the right, pulling hard. “Okay, straighten out….” Dean forced the wheel back.

“Dean, just loosen up, it’ll straighten on its own.”

Dean let go. John put his son’s hands back on the wheel. “Don’t let go, hold it loose.”

“Sorry,” Dean mumbled.

“You’re doing fine.” 

John took his hands away and added a little gas. In the back seat, Sam reached forward. “Me, Daddy! My turn!”

“No, Sammy, it’s still Dean’s turn. We’ll wait until you’re a little older, buddy.” Out of habit, he sought Sam’s face in the mirror. As he returned to the road ahead, he saw a hazy red outline heading toward them.

“Truck, Daddy,” Dean observed.

“Yup. You’re okay, son, just keep steady. He’s still miles away.”

They continued along the road, closing the gap between the Impala and the semi. Dean was going reasonably straight, but not enough for John’s comfort. As they neared, John said, “Okay, Dean, that’s enough for today. Let your old man take it back.”

“No!” Dean said suddenly. “I can do it!”

“Dean, I know you can, but not now,” John said firmly. He put his hands on the wheel.

“Dad! No!” Dean twisted left, hands still on the wheel. John fought to keep the car in the lane.

“Dean!” John pulled over hard, gunning to get out of the truck’s way, then braking out of reflex. He threw an arm around Dean’s torso, but couldn’t move quickly enough to keep him from cracking his forehead on the steering wheel.

“Ow! Owowowowow!” Dean shrieked, bursting into tears. Sam was also crying in the back. John slammed the car into park as quickly as he could. The truck’s horn blared in an angry blast when it trundled by, which only made both boys cry louder.

“Are you okay?” he asked. Then: “Sammy, are you all right?”

Sam rubbed his chest where the car-seat restrained him, big tears streaming down his face, but otherwise he looked okay. Dean, on the other hand, was still holding his head and wailing, instantly his own age again, for all that he was normally so mature. 

“Okay, Dean, okay,” John said over and over as he shifted Dean off his lap and onto the passenger side. “Let me see…. You’re okay, buddy, it’s okay….” He pulled Dean’s hands away and checked him thoroughly. Dean had a wicked red mark on his forehead and a lump was already forming, but he wasn’t bleeding. John rubbed his temple in shame. Other fathers only had to blow on a skinned knee when their boys fell off their bikes, John thought. He was checking his son for a concussion, and thanking God that he hadn’t been going fast enough to snap his boy’s neck, or throw him through the windshield. 

“Daddy, it hurts! I hit my head…” Dean choked out between sobs.

“I know, I know, shhh…. You’ll be fine, Dean.” John kissed the bump carefully and pulled the tissue box around from behind his seat. “But that’s why when I tell you that’s enough, I mean it, okay? When I tell you to do something, you do it, Dean. Got that?”

Dean nodded, tears subsiding. He wiped his nose and mouth with a wad of tissues. All his customary reserve came pouring back into him, so unnaturally taciturn that John instantly regretted being so harsh. But what choice did he have, really? Better he learn now, when it was relatively safe, than later, and put them both in worse danger. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“We’ll stop in the next town for some ice for your head, huh? There’s a diner a few miles away…you can have some ice cream, okay? Birthday boy?” Dean sniffed despondently, head downcast. John angled himself to lean down and look Dean in the face. He smiled as Dean looked up a bit to meet his eyes.

“Hey, you did really well today, kiddo. It’s okay, little man….” He ruffled Dean’s hair, then got out and came around the car. He opened Dean’s door, gathered him up (he was really getting too heavy for that), and settled him into the backseat, still murmuring softly to calm both boys down after the excitement. As he checked Sam over to make sure of him, too, John couldn’t shake off the replay: Dean leaning forward, cracking his head against the wheel rim. While driving to town, the image warred in John’s mind with a hedge-lined sidewalk, a bright red bicycle, and fathers holding their sons steady before letting go.

**Author's Note:**

> Original A/N: Thanks to betas relli86 - “This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship” – and etakyma, who gave me feedback even though she didn’t like the direction this took. Regardless, it’s a much better fic than the first draft would have been without her.


End file.
